Layout a path in which you'd like fire to spread over the course of multiple turns (You'd pick tiles using GUI you use for growths) Each turn, the RNG will determine:-Speed in which it burns towards target (max 3 tiles)-Chance of burning out at fire's trail (fire tiles dissipating)

Damage will be tested on any creature in the path of the fire, if fire attack succeeds, fire keeps moving towards it's target. If the fire attack fails, it stops moving towards it's target.

Context: It'd add another bluffing type spell in the vein of meteor, it could be a fairly decent attack value which could counter growths, but have a weakness against structures. It would also make players consider the way that they position their troops. (as a right path trajectory could potentially kill multiple units)

Though the trick here would be determining if the fire had a chance of spreading to other tiles were it hasn't burned out (what about trees on forest maps?)

Suppose if you wanted to add an update with more environmental focal spells, this could make a good addition. Otherwise, the possibility of tweaking crystal wall to be something more organic like this as opposed to a cast + trap things 3 tiles in front of you (which is pretty infamous, from what i've gathered)

Quite an interesting idea to have fire as an anti-growth spell ..although thinking about it, it's kinda fair that wall/vines are reasonably hard to break down. The mega-spell version of fire could get kinda crazy.

I'm thinking maybe meteor shower is the direct successor to fire, balanced in such a way to fit into the MP as a tactical spell rather than a doomsday spell.

In general I don't think another non-creature spell is needed, they already outnumber creature spells, the game drastically changed after the big 'non-creature spell update' (towers, wall etc). The game works best when its tipped more towards creature based tactics, the creature pool was watered down enough to cause some deck drawing issues..

I classify the current spell pool as 19 creatures/25 non-creatures (27 if you count turmoil + disbelieve)..

..When the spell pool was more in favour of creatures it wasn't possible to struggle in games based on the deck that you drew (there was no such thing as a 'bad deck'), now you can draw a deck which consists of 75% non-creatures (only around 6 actual creature cards in the entire deck.. this is worse case scenario of course, and rare).

A multi-purpose deck (creatures) beats a situational deck (non-creatures) every time, you almost have to play for a draw from the outset when you draw a non-creature heavy deck (also bear in mind that when you do only draw a handful of creatures, they are not guaranteed to cast.. another reason why veering away from a creature based emphasis was problematic).

Therefore I'd make 'magic fire' a passive ability in every single starting deck. It would burn every single bolt tower/icarus tower/paralyse/meteor card in my deck and replace them with creature cards instead..

..the removal of that questionable group of spells would directly address a couple of balance issues..

1, You will now draw something that feels more like a full, varied and well rounded deck (of 20-22 proper Chaos spells), no wasteful cards diminishing your deck/hand size.. Welcome back all the staple non-creature spells that you used to draw regularly in their place (magic attacks/growths etc).. Hello creature army.

2, You will now have a much better chance of drawing actual undead counters again, in the form of.. other undead creatures/magic attacks/growths/bolts/weapons ..instead of nearly a quarter of the deck being tower spells

(bear in mind that you draw things like totems and FoL's alongside all those towers.. that's why 2 kinds of towers were such an unnecessary, and problematic, addition).

Related point - One of the biggest issues in 6way games (apart from shape/size of the maps and the starting positions that put players in 2v1 situations from the start) is you can't compete against 5 other wizards with only a handful of creature cards..

..you need to draw a creature mega-spell to have some sustainability otherwise you can use up your entire deck fighting 1 or 2 wizards and have nothing left to deal with the remaining players (my solution for this would be to be able to loot dead wizards, e.g, gain 3 new spells when you make a wizard kill).

That's a very good point. With that said, I think it'd just be a case of either adding more creatures or changing the way the decks are built. for ex:

50% Max non-creatures in deck60% Max creatures in deck

and just have sub branches from their.

That passive ability idea reminds me of 'meditate' from the original chaos. Perhaps something like it could be introduced with some added functionality.

Meditate: Chance to add cards to deck, with some extra functions.1)If you burn the spell alone, it's a simple roll for any random spell (except for cards already in deck, 2 max will still apply)2)GUI will allow you to select spells from your hand to burn. This could boost the chances of getting more useful cards. Don't know if theirs any stats to make a good enough algorythm, but perhaps if your opponent(s) had alot of undead, you'd have a higher chance of getting more undead counters, if they had mounts, maybe get some cards that make you more competitive. Maybe the spell would generate creatures alike the opponent's creatures on the board.

This could add some thoughtful layer to the game, say if you determine you have spells on the board that could be enhanced by a good approximation of what the meditate spell would give you....presto!

hmmm... maybe not the original, but the android port i downloaded for my phone contained a spell called meditate. It basically sits in your spell list alongside disbeleive, but allowed you to meditate for the turn for a chance to draw a new spell.

At present the player has to make a conscious decision over whether to burn spells in order to be stronger during the early turns of the game at the cost of potentially being weaker later on. Meditate would reduce that area of strategy from the game. Essentially everyone would have greater incentive to burn and I suspect we'd be back to rush tactics.

Late on, it's often fun to guess whether your opponent has run out of spells or whether they're saving something nasty. The tension of doing this would would be eliminated from the game.

In equipped mode a player already has a choice over whether they want to start with greater or fewer spells, it can be determined by equippment selection at the cost of lower stats in other areas. This choice would be diminished within the game, and any existing equipment which provides a larger deck size would be reduced in value.

An equipped player also has the option to bring magic trees, at the cost of other spell binding, if they feel that more spells may be needed during a match. In general magic trees are a fun way to gain additional spells, meditation would reduce their relative worth and we'd therefore see fewer of the during the game.

It's up to the player to choose when to cast their better cards, and when to bring out the big guns. With meditate I think there's danger that we'd see matches with only a few particular creature types being cast; the rest would constantly get burnt and reused. There's already a small enough creature pool, I don't think it'd be good to see that pool grow any smaller.